


The Winter Witch

by i_am_still_bb



Series: Gathering Fiki - 12 Days of Christmas (2020) [5]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Narnia-esque, Friends to Enemies to Friends, Gen, Unrelated Fíli and Kíli, can be read as either Fili/Kili or Fili & Kili
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28264218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_still_bb/pseuds/i_am_still_bb
Summary: The Winter Witch locks Middle Earth in snow and ice. Stories reach Kili's ears of the atrocities committed by the Witch and her Lion. But things are not always as they seem.
Relationships: Fíli & Kíli (Tolkien), Fíli/Kíli (Tolkien)
Series: Gathering Fiki - 12 Days of Christmas (2020) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2048309
Kudos: 10
Collections: GatheringFiKi - 12 Days Of Christmas 2020





	The Winter Witch

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gathering Fiki's 12 Days of Christmas event.
> 
> Inspired by this lovely photoset.

Kili had grown up with the Winter Witch’s Lion.

They were boys together. They played hide and seek, had campfires, and minor scuffles. Summers were their favorite. They loved the long days and balmy nights. They swam in the rivers, fished, and generally wasted the day away on pleasant pursuits while avoiding the chores that would surely await them when they returned home. 

Kili’s own mother scolded him soundly on more than one occasion, but there was always a twinkle in her eye and a sense of understanding. She would threaten all kinds of punishments, but the she would shoo him out the door—more than once she had plucked the broom from his hands and swatted at him until he ran from the house laughing—the next morning when his friends showed up looking for him. 

And then the Winter Witch came. 

Summers became a thing of the past.

With her icy gaze she lured young people away from villages to serve her in her blue castle on the sea.

They had sworn they would never be enticed by her trickery. They pricked their thumbs and crossed their hearts.

But then he was gone.

And Kili was left alone. 

Then the stories came. People spoke of the Witch’s Lion in hushed tones full of awe and fear.

Kili thought nothing of it until the Witch came again. And she brought her Lion with her. She summoned everyone living in the village to the Lamppost, around which they used to dance in the summer and string lights from in the winter.

And the Lion was there. By now they were both fully grown. No longer were they gangly boys with eager expressions. 

And Kili knew him. 

After that Kili withdrew from the village. The Witch had taken more children with her that time. And Kili could not stand to see the empty streets or to hear stories of this happening elsewhere.

He took his bow and he retreated to the woods and the cabin that he built there. He seldom had visitors, but stories of the Witch and her Lion still reached him. Stories of theft and atrocities.

An arrow in Kili’s quiver was reserved for the Lion.

Years passed. Winter lingered, cold and damp until memories of summer were hazy half dreams. And the arrow stayed in Kili’s quiver. Feelings of betrayal faded. Stories of the Witch came less and less frequently. 

===

Kili has just finished shaping the final mound of sticky dough into a loaf shape when a sound comes that sounds like someone knocking at his front door. But no one ever visits. He puts the three loaves into the maw of his cast iron stove and shuts it with a clang.

The sound comes again. 

And this time Kili is sure that is a knock.

He grabs a knife before approaching the door.

“Who is it?”

The voice on the other side is quiet. And Kili does not recognize it. “Kili, please…” The wind carries the rest of it away. 

Kili adjusts his grip on the knife thinking of all the fearsome things that came to live in the woods after the Witch’s winter settled in. Animals with human voices that lured children and adults alike into deep cravasses and onto barely frozen ice.

He opens the door a crack.

He freezes at what he sees before opening the door wider. 

The Witch’s Lion is standing on his doorstep. 

He dressed only in his shirt that is smeared with dirt and blood. The blood on his face from a split lip and a deep cut across his cheekbone is dry and crusted. 

“Fili?” Kili does not put the knife away, but his grip relaxes.

“I…” Fili starts to say, but his whole body shakes in a shiver that he cannot suppress.

Kili tucks his knife away and yanks his unexpected guest inside.

Fili sways when Kili releases his hold on his sleeve. He licks his bottom lip. “I didn’t know where else to go…” he mumbles, eyes unfocused and hazy. 

Kili reaches out to steady him just in time to stop him from crashing to the floor.

===

Kili does not go out the next day. He stays in and keeps an eye on Fili. He is wary around him, but also concerned. The steady rise and fall of his chest reassures Kili as he does whatever chores he can think of that keep him indoors or near the cabin. 

It is late afternoon when Fili wakes.

Neither of them say anything until Fili has eaten a decent portion of the bread, cheese, and soup that Kili has pushed up him upon waking.

Kili sits on a chair in front of the stove and its radiating warmth. He leans forward, elbows on knees, “Why are you here?”

Fili swallows and sets his bowl down. “It’s over,” he says quietly.

“What’s over?”

“Everything the Witch did. It’s over.”

Kili’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean by ‘over?’”

“Everything should go back to the way it was before.”

“Why?”

Fili looks at Kili for the first time since he woke up. “She’s dead.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m the one who did it.”

Kili’s eyes widen in surprise.

“After all those years I finally had the opportunity. Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but I still did it. She’s gone.”


End file.
